Re-connecting

 

Candlelight breakfast. 

We lost power in a windstorm at 7:30 AM Monday morning. It was that damn tree, as we refer to the dead Cottonwood near the street in a neighbor's yard just down hill, that has taken out our power before. This time instead of branches coming down, it was the whole top of the tree. Our power was restored that afternoon. However, the communication cable lines were shattered in a half block area.

Comcast crews worked all day yesterday and into the night. We are back. I can use my computer and Blogger knows me. I am no longer anonymous. 

While those guys were working we had lunch in Ballard where my cousin Kris and her partner Charlie live. They had recently moved back into her childhood home and wanted us to see the changes they are making, and just have some holiday time together. Charlie cooked. They had been part of our Thanksgiving gathering here but it was good to see them in their home, a place I hadn't been to for many years. 

That morning we had been receiving email photos from Jill and Jake of the flood tides at the Whidbey Island cabin where they are staying this week. 

King Tides accompanied by high winds and low pressure caused the tide water to rise higher than anyone remembers it, causing flooding. 

The lagoon spilled right over the bulkheads and into the yard. Fortunately our cabin and our cousin's next door are new enough that they were built well above ground level. They stayed dry inside.

The dock was rescued.

This is the front yard. 

The street

From the beach access. The bay on one side of the spit came up to meet the lagoon on the other. I'm sure there is water damage in some of the properties. There will be lots of clean up to do. 

Finally, December 28th is an important day in our family. It was our mother's birthday. This would mark her 101th birthday, as she was born in 1921. This is her high school graduation photo. 

For many years my large immediate family would gather at the home of our oldest sibling, Ilene, to celebrate Mom's birthday and the Norquist Family Christmas.

That's Ilene on the left with sisters Laurie and me and Mom in a photo taken in 2011, at our cider bee, about a month before Mom died. Ilene is gone now too. 

Mom left a huge legacy, including our cabin at Rockaway Beach on the Oregon Coast, a place she dearly loved. 

There was flooding in Rockaway on the Oregon Coast too, but since we invested in protecting that old cabin from high water by raising it up on pillars, it will have survived. We are protecting Mom's legacy. 

Rockaway cabin in summer